


After Dark

by achievemenhunter



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Blood, M/M, Mild Gore, Non-Permanent Character Death, Platonic Freewood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achievemenhunter/pseuds/achievemenhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When mucking around on Geoff's latest Let's Play build, something goes wrong and Gavin doesn't respawn at the beds.</p><p>Instead, he wakes up in the middle of the forest.</p><p>Alone.</p><p>No supplies.</p><p>And the sun is beginning to set...</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Dark

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this over a year ago now? And I just got around to finishing it. Oops.
> 
> ~~It's still not as long as for that prison AU that we don't talk about~~
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! Content warnings are in the tags.

Ryan peered nervously over the edge of the platform, the wind tugging at his hair. "I don't like this one, Geoff," he muttered. The majority of the others echoed this sentiment.

 

Without any of the inhibitions of his companions, Gavin beamed as he leaned over the edge to get a better look at the course. "C'mon, guys, it'll be top!"

 

"Gavin's right, for once. You'll be fine, there's nothing to worry about." Geoff waved his hand affably, a lazy grin on his face.

 

"Easy for you to say," Michael grumbled, taking his own trepidatious look at the staggered sections of floating blocks of ice and snow that would be the only things controlling their decent. "You're not even participating in this."

 

"Well, duh. Someone's gotta stay at the bottom to judge who wins."

 

"How selfless of you," Jack muttered, giving the largely open space below them his own dubious glance.

 

Geoff grinned, already clambering back down the ladder that led up to their precarious platform. "Exactly. Have fun!" And then he was gone.

 

Ray sighed dejectedly as Geoff left. "This is why I hate outside," he said mildly, dropping down onto the first block before hopping onto the next. With their own weary acceptance, the remaining Achievement Hunters followed suit, starting with Michael and ending with Jack.

 

"Remind me why we keep putting up with these ridiculous ideas of Geoff's," Ryan groused, clinging to his block, snow slowly soaking into his jacket as he cast around for the best block for him to drop down onto.

 

Gavin grinned from next block over, having just slid neatly onto it from the ice block suspended above it. It always astounded Ryan how the Brit's clumsiness often seemed to disappear on these courses. "It'd be boring if we just hung around in Achievement City all day, Rye-Bread! Stop being such a minge and have some fun."

 

"Right," Ryan muttered under his breath, selecting his next block and leaping onto it, heart speeding up before he gained a solid hold. Gavin moved with far less caution, practically dancing from block to block. He probably could have already won by now, but he seemed more interested in antagonising Ryan, which he was doing quite successfully. "Be careful," Ryan warned. "We're still quite a ways up, it's gonna hurt a lot if you fall."

 

"I'll be _fine_ ," Gavin replied dismissively. "See?" He launched himself from the block he was crouched on, aiming for one slightly to the left of Ryan.

 

But he'd misjudged the distance, and his hands barely closed around the edge of the new block. He scrabbled desperately to get a decent hold, but his grip slipped and suddenly he was dangling by one hand.

 

Gavin felt the packed show slide out from under his fingers, and then he was falling. Ryan called out his name, a panicked look on his face as he reached for the Brit, but he missed. Michael and Ray's faces whipped by Gavin, their expressions a shocked blur. Wind roaring in his ears like an enraged beast, Gavin tumbled helplessly through the air, and he saw the ground rushing up to meet him less than a second before he hit it with a sickening crunch.

 

 ~* * *~

 

Gavin woke with a suddenness, groaning from the pain of having all of his molecules simultaneously reconstituted.

 

Respawning was always such a bitch.

 

He sat up, cracking his back and rubbing at his eyes. He'd always hated those few seconds spent in limbo before respawning, where pretty much the only sensation anyone was capable of feeling was whatever had killed them. Dying from a fall, especially from a great height, was one his least favourite ways to die - the majority of his bones broken, ruptured internal organs and blood oozing from places it shouldn't be, like his eyes or mouth or his arm because oh look there's a piece of broken bone sticking out of his skin.

 

Not that he could really say he a _favourite_ way to die, but the point remained.

 

Shaking of the sensation of being momentarily dead with a shudder, Gavin finally opened his eyes and froze.

 

He was sitting in the middle of a field that was very much not the spawn point that he'd set at the Let's Play. He stared at the gently swaying grass with despair. Slowly standing, he spun in a full circle, scanning the horizon for anything that looked familiar. Everything around him was completely foreign - he couldn't even see Geoff's ridiculous monolith of a house. His legs gave out beneath him and he sat down again with a soft thump.

 

"Oh bollocks," he whispered to the small yellow flowers springing up near his feet.

 

~* * *~

 

After allowing himself a few minutes to wallow in his self-pity and fear, Gavin clambered to his feet, heading towards the tree line at the bottom of the small, bare hill he'd ended up on. The others would be looking for him once they realised he hadn't respawned where he was supposed to, he knew. In the meantime, the best thing he could do was to stay put, and perhaps gather some materials. Sunset was still an hour or so off, but Gavin had no idea how long it would take for the others to find him, so he knew he had to prepare for the possibility that he'd be spending the night wherever he was. With a sigh, he raised his fists and started pounding at a tree, wincing as his knuckles bruised and split. A few more seconds saw the tree toppling with a groan, splitting neatly into chunks that he fashioned into a wooden axe to allow him to more easily gather supplies, as well as a crude sword to defend himself with just in case. Knocking down four more trees provided him with enough wood to craft into planks to build a decent shelter, and he quickly got to work, slotting the planks of wood together as tightly as he could as he set up the base of the walls.

 

Just under an hour later, Gavin had an almost fully constructed shelter. It was small and poky, but it should be enough to keep him safe. The last few rays of sunlight lit the inside of the tiny hut, lending a soft orange glow to the wood surrounding him.

 

The colour drained away as the sun finally slipped below the horizon, only the moon lighting the sky. Gavin used the silvery beams as his guide to slot the last plank in place, enveloping him in complete darkness. Groping along the wall carefully, his hand closed around the hilt of his wooden sword. He held it out in front of him with trembling hands.

 

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself, rationalising that even if the monsters did manage to get at him, he'd just respawn somewhere else, somewhere hopefully safer and possibly with a recognisable landmark. Still, the thought of being shot full of arrows by a skeleton, or slowly curling up in agony as a spider's venom worked through him, or having his flesh torn apart by a zombie, all remained firmly unappealing. Not to mention that the way his luck was going, he'd just respawn somewhere even further from home. Probably in the middle of another group of mobs, too.

 

He bit back a terrified sob as something started to bang on the wall, interspersed with low, guttural moans. Zombie. The thumping grew louder as the lone undead was joined by another, groaning in a dreadful chorus. Gavin curled up in the fetal position in the middle of the cramped floor, hands clamped over his ears, trying to ignore the noises from outside. Trying to ignore the fact that the unthinking monsters lurking there wouldn't be held off by his pitiful sword forever. They'd tear him to pieces, would slowly devour his flesh as he writhed in pain and waited to die, only to respawn somewhere else with no supplies or even the meagre shelter he'd made for himself, and in all likelihood repeating the horrifying process again and again until dawn came-

 

With a choked sound, he shook his head, fiercely willing the unwelcome thoughts to leave him alone. He flinched as a new rhythm of quieter thuds let him know that there were now skeletons shooting at his hideout. A few minutes after that, there was a heavy scuffling on the roof as spiders joined the fray. Gavin wasn't sure if it was just his overwrought imagination expecting the worst at this point, but he thought that he could hear wolves baying in the distance.

 

It seemed that pretty much every mob in the world was converging on his small wooden hut, trying to get at the fresh meat hidden inside like a prize.

 

 _Not every mob_ , he realised with a sudden drop of his stomach, wondering how he could have forgotten the one monster that was the most danger to him when he had built walls that weren't impervious to explosions. He felt the tears building up and he tried to force them back down. He failed, and they dripped from his eyes, soaking the ground until he had no more tears to give.

 

~* * *~

 

He wasn't quite sure how long it took for his tired mind to finally rest. It felt like days, though logically it could only have been a few hours. Regardless, it was the most restless period of sleep he'd ever experienced, waking every time there was a change in the pattern of noises coming from outside, scared witless that at any moment he would hear a sibilant hiss that would signify the destruction of his cramped refuge.

 

The din died down after a few more fraught hours, and, exhausted, Gavin finally slipped into a deeper, dreamless slumber.

 

The warm cocoon of the void was stripped away suddenly when the banging on the walls resumed. With a frightened, confused squeak, Gavin fumbled for his sword, tumbled to his feet and pressed himself against the wall opposite the one being attacked. His heart pounded in his chest, hands shaking around the crude wooden hilt of his weapon, adrenaline coursing through him as his mind struggled to catch up. He couldn't tell if it was daylight or not - the wooden blocks were packed too tightly for the sunlight to shine through, but he'd assumed before taking his nap that the sun had to have risen for the mobs to have stopped attacking his shelter. The horrifying thought occurred to him that his fatigue had made him sleep through the whole day, and that the sun had set again. He doubted his sanity would be able to stand another night like that.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut and the wall promptly burst open, filling the poky chamber with sunlight and fresh air.

 

"Guys, I found him!"

 

Gavin's eyes shot open and, dropping his sword, he flung himself across the room, wrapping his arms around the neck of whoever it was that had busted through the wall and burying his head against their shoulder. His own shoulders shuddered and shook with unshed tears, his fingers digging into the jacket of his rescuer.

 

"Hey. Hey, Gav, it's okay. You're fine now. I've got you." The words were soothing, low-pitched, and Gavin recognised Ryan's voice. Never had he been so glad to hear another human being talk. "Don't worry, everything's alright now." Ryan rubbed comforting circles on his back, rocking him gently from side to side like a child, making soft hushing noises all the while. Gavin could hear the others approaching and expressing their relief at the discovery of the missing Lad.

 

"You okay, boi?" Michael asked from behind him. Gavin just shook his head, still clinging desperately to the back of Ryan's jacket.

 

The Gent looked up at their approaching friends. "He's a little shaken up, I think. Probably best if we just get him back to Achievement City."

 

"Good idea," Geoff agreed. "Man, I was scared shitless when he didn't show up back at the spawn area, can't imagine what it must've been like for _him_. We'll have to take a look at that bed, see if we can figure out what went wrong."

 

Ryan went to pry Gavin's arms from around his neck, but the Lad stiffened and tightened his grip. "Please, Rye, I'm sorry, I can't-" Gavin whimpered, occasional tremors still rippling through him.

 

The rest of the Achievement Hunters gave the young man worried looks, but Ryan just made a soothing sound. "Don't worry about it, Gavin. Like I said - I've got you." The last few words were slightly strained as he lifted Gavin into his arms, bridal style. Gavin curled into him, arms slackening just the slightest to allow himself to get into a more comfortable position, and promptly fell asleep, completely worn out.

 

"You sure you're okay to carry him yourself?" Jack asked, already offering a helping hand.

 

"Yeah, it's no problem. Weighs about as much as a bag of feathers." He smiled briefly and jerked his head in the direction of Achievement City. "C'mon, let's get home."

 


End file.
